Microsoft sneaks One Drive ad into Windows 10 file explorer

Upgrade to Windows 10, they said. It’s better than Windows 8, they said. And for a while, they were right.

Right up until a couple of weeks ago, when some users claimed to have seen banner ads on Windows Explorer promoting Microsoft products such as Microsoft One Drive, Microsoft’s own cloud storage service that is built into Windows 10, and Microsoft Office 365, the subscription-based version of Microsoft office. Although, just paying for the One Drive service will already get you a subscription to Office 365.

These products are great and are actually something I use very frequently myself, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that mean that I want to be made aware of that deal when I’m browsing my files.

I’m sure Microsoft would argue that these aren’t ads but come on, we’re not that dumb.

These ads appear at the top of the file explorer to remind you that you, too, can have One Drive and Office 365 for the low price of $6.99 per month. You can take Microsoft up on the offer or just dismiss it altogether, though dismissing it would mean it would just reappear at a later date.

People have reported this happening a few months ago, but the number of incidences has gone up in the past couple of weeks. This is not the first time that Microsoft has crammed ads into the Windows UI – There are lock screen ads disguised as backgrounds, and I’m sure we’ve all seen the notification ads for Edge and again, One Drive. Although, none of the past promotions have been as blatant as the One Drive advert in the File Explorer.

It’s quite sad how we are still getting these ads considering that Windows 10, although it was given out for free for windows 7, 8, and 8.1 users, is still a paid product.